This week we’re gearing up for Valentine’s Day, and have a touch of the Robin Hood’s about us (if he borrowed Cupid’s arrow for the day that is).

If you need a bit of inspiration for your Valentine’s gift, look no further! Give your loved one the gift of cake!

What you’ll need…

Non-Stick Smart Mat
Rolling Pin
Pre-coloured Red Sugar Paste
Angled Palette Knife
CMC Powder
Heart Cutters (Set of 3)
Edible Glue
Raw Spaghetti – cut 2 pieces roughly 4cm in length (We dusted ours with a little white lustre dust)
Cupcake, piped with a classic swirl
Ribbon (optional)

1. Mix your red paste with a little CMC powder and work in until it becomes a slightly tougher consisitency. Then roll out to about 3mm thick.

2. Cut out one full heart (we used the largest of the 3 hearts) then using the pointed end of the heart, cut out another piece, missing off the double curve at the edge of the sugar paste, so you have a a triangle.

3. Cut another triangle in the centre of the triangle using your palette knife and fan out slightly to make your “feather”. Then use the palette knife to mark shallow scores along the sides of the feather.

4. Dip one end of the spaghetti pieces into the glue and gently slide into the crease of the heart and the other piece into point of the feather, being careful not to break the surface. Leave to dry over night.

5. When dried hard put your pieces either side of the swirl on a cupcake.

6. Romance your loved one!

We tied a piece of red ribbon around our cupcake case for added affect, but if you have a little trouble with this see next week’s blog for tips and tricks for tying perfect bows around your cupcakes and making light of romantic lace trim.

Have a great week everybody and we look forward to seeing your Valentine’s Day creations!

Jenny x

National Marriage Week is fast approaching (7th-14th February), closely followed by Valentine’s day, and did you know its traditional for women to propose to their man in a leap year? According to Irish legend, St Bridget struck a deal with St Patrick to allow women to propose to men every 4 years. This is said to have been agreed on in order to balance male and female roles, much the same way the leap day is intended to balance the calendar. If however, the proposal was refused, the male was expected to buy the woman many pairs of gloves in order to hide the shame of her not having an engagement ring.

We feel we’ve moved on (just a bit) from this so if you’re planning on proposing, not proposing, being proposed to, not being proposed to, it really hasn’t crossed your mind, or you couldn’t imagine anything worse, forget the gloves and the ring and lets all just make and eat beautiful cakes instead and if it happens, it happens, we’ll deal with it then!

What you’ll need…
Non-Stick Smooth Rolling Mat
Rolling Pin
Florist Paste (Or sugar paste mixed with CMC Powder)
Ruler (30cm)
Cutting Wheel and/or Quilt Design Wheel
Heart/Arum Lily Cutter (Small)
Glitter & Brush (Optional)
Cupcake covered with sugar paste or piped with swirl

1. Roll out a piece of florist paste, making it very long and very thin. Using the cutting wheel and ruler cut the paste to length of the ruler. Then cut a thin strip for your ribbon.

2. Using the quilting wheel carefully run it down each side of the ribbon, to create a stitched effect.
3. Take the small heart cutter and use the point to cut a triangle into each end of the ribbon.

4. With the stitching facing upwards fold the ribbon in half to make a good crease.

5.Then unfold and start to shape the heart, crossing the ribbon at the point and twisting to create a whimsical finish!

6. Leave to dry overnight and place on your cupcake.

Enjoy!

Jenny x

If your supply of edible glue runs dry and you’ve got some Blue Door Bakery CMC powder handy, fear not! Whip yourself up some more glue overnight with this very simple recipe…

What you’ll need…

CMC powder
Warm water
Empty pot
Paintbrush (for stirring)
Teaspoon
Homemade edible glue label (optional)

1. Put about one quarter of a teaspoon of CMC powder into your empty pot

2. Add roughly 20ml of warm water to the powder and stir quickly and thoroughly with the end of your paintbrush. The mixture may look lumpy at this point but don’t worry! All will be fine in the morning!

3. Put a lid on the pot and store in the fridge overnight.
4. In the morning the mixture should be of a syrupy consistency and run from the brush so if it seems a little thick simply add a touch more water until you have the desired thickness.

5. Stick til your heart’s content!

We hope you enjoyed our tutorial this week, and don’t forget, you can buy CMC powder and edible glue in our online shop (might be best to get two pots next time….)

Jenny x

One of the things we get asked about the most is the mighty giant cupcake, from recipe to decoration. So this week we thought we’d tell you exactly how we do it! Below is the recipe and instructions for our vanilla giant cupcake.

Ingredients

350g Unsalted Butter
350g Caster Sugar
6 eggs
2 tsp Vanilla Extract
350g Self-raising Flour
175g Plain Flour

You’ll also need a giant cupcake pan. Our favourite is the Wilton Giant Cupcake Pan for shape and ease of use, so the baking method is based on using this particular mould. We use this with Wilton Cake Release, which is used to grease the pan, making the cake easier to remove.

1. Turn the oven to 140C/275F/Gas mark 1 and grease the giant cupcake pan with the Wilton Cake Release
2. Cream together the butter and sugar in a large bowl, using a standalone or hand-held mixer
3. Add the vanilla and the eggs gradually, mixing all of the time, until combined
4. Mix in all of the flour by hand using a wooden spoon until the mixture is smooth
5. Spoon two thirds of the mixture into the side of the pan intended for the bottom of the giant cupcake
6. Bake for roughly 20 minutes
7. Remove from the oven and spoon the remaining mixture into the side of the pan intended for the top of the cupcake
8. Replace in the oven and bake for a further 70 minutes or until both sides are baked. To test whether the cake is cooked right through, insert a skewer into the centre of the cake. If it comes out clean your cake is cooked, if not return to the oven until cooked. If you find your top is a little drier than the bottom adjust time accordingly.
9. Leave the cake in the pan on a cooling rack until cooled
10. The cake should come away from the pan fairly easily, but carefully slide a palette knife down the sides of the cake to release it if it sticks a little
11. Leave until completely cooled before decorating

For a master-class on how to ice a giant cupcake please click HERE to see our Youtube video!

If you’re finding your giant cupcake a little dry, try adding 1 tsp glycerine, which primarily helps keep moisture in the cake, making it a little softer. And if you’d rather make a chocolatey giant cupcake simply leave out the vanilla extract and replace 60g plain flour with good quality cocoa.

Enjoy!

Jenny

Firstly, happy new year! We hope you’ve had a brilliant Christmas and are ready and raring to go into 2012. It’s that time of year again, to think about what we want to achieve in the coming year and make some resolutions..

Jenny and I have resolved to not eat chocolate for breakfast, Laura’s resolution is to only ever eat her Slimming World lunch when working and Gemma’s resolution is to eat more of her favourite brie and grape sandwiches that we serve as part of our class lunch selection. (Better up the sandwich order Jen’..) Anyway, true to form most of our resolutions are food related.

What are your resolutions for 2012? Lots of people have been in touch with us to book classes to inspire them in starting a cake business this year, so I thought I’d give you some tips about where to start if you’re thinking of making the same leap, and aiming to ditch the day job, as one of your resolutions.

1. Think about your strengths and weaknesses.
Yes, I know this sounds boring and like something a careers advisor would say, but really it helps in loads of ways. It allows you to prioritise your spending by getting help only where you really need it (are you a bit of a techy but hate numbers? Think about writing your own website but pay for plenty of accounts advice then). It should also influence the basis of your business and the customers that you market yourself to (do you thrive on pressure of a big project but hate waking up early all week? Think about focussing on weekend wedding orders).

2. Learn as much as possible
Learn as much as you can before you start, because when you’re in the midst of being busy with orders, it’s much harder to make time for this. So, read any business book you can lay your hands on, go on bookeeping and tax courses (often run for free by HMRC), learn about online advertising and social media and of course perfect your sugarcraft techniques!

3. Only listen to business advice that is relevant
When you start to think of running your own business, EVERYONE will have some advice for you. On pricing, who to sell to, what to sell, how to market yourself, where to advertise, the list goes on. My advice is listen to it all, but only act on the bits which come from people who have experience of what you’re trying to do.. Listen to an accountant for accounts advice, a website designer or book for web design advice and someone who has run a (successful!) CAKE business for advice on that. Selling cakes is VERY different to selling cars or candles or keys!

4. A final word on cupcake businesses…
The first question I’m often asked in our business classes, is how to survive in a marketplace that is now so full of competitors. I feel really strongly about this. It isn’t bad to have competition, it means that the market for cakes and cupcakes particularly is buoyant and people are more aware of their availability. Rather than worrying about the competition, you need to focus on two things if you’re going to be successful; firstly, what’s going to set you apart, make you different and better than them and secondly, how you are going to run a profitable business, after all, if there’s no profit, you’re not running a sustainable business. These two things will really help to take you from being a person who bakes as a hobby to someone who is running a successful cake business.

I hope the tips have helped, I ran my own cupcake business for a long time before starting to teach classes, so really understand how daunting it can be when you’re starting out. If you would like mountains more advice, tips, knowledge and questions answered, we run Starting Your Own Cupcake Business Classes and there are a couple of spaces left on 16th January and 23rd January 2011. Please note, these will be the last of this particular class until later in the year as I’m going to be having some time off on maternity leave!

Loads of luck with your resolutions, let us know how you’re getting on!

Sarah x